Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing

laptop on a desk, with a notepad and pen

Whether you wish to target a local audience or expand your brand online, there are a range of strategies to think about. From inbound to outbound marketing, it is important to consider which is best for your business. We are here to help you decide!

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing allows businesses to promote their brand online. With over 4.54 billion active users online, digital marketing can help businesses reach a much wider audience! Because of this, you will have the ability to advertise to new and existing customers both locally and worldwide.

Targeting Your Audience

There are also a range of marketing strategies to use online. Some of these include:

  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
  • Social media marketing
  • Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
  • Web design
  • Email marketing
  • Blogging

By using these platforms, you will have the ability to personalise your brand and easily inform customers about your products. This creates a more tailored approach to marketing and can also help to build a greater relationship with your audience.

Conversion Rates

Using inbound marketing will give businesses higher conversion rates whilst also costing less than most traditional marketing programs. Because of this, you will always receive a greater return of investment when advertising online.

Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing allows businesses to engage with customers by using more traditional strategies such as newspapers, radio advertising and billboards. Because of this, businesses have the ability to reach a more local audience. However, these platforms will always advertise to a much broader audience that may not necessarily be interested in your products.

With no way of tracking whether your customers have seen your campaign, outbound marketing may not benefit your business as much as other methods. When using inbound marketing, businesses will have access to a range of tracking programs such as Google Analytics. This allows you to analyse your website performance in real-time, giving you the opportunity to create specific content that is focused on this data.

More Physical

By advertising using traditional methods, customers will have the ability to keep hold of your advertisements for future needs. This is something that isn't as accessible through digital marketing. Customers can also share these campaigns with their friends and family which could help to increase your business performance.

Consistent

Outbound marketing channels tend to stay the same. Because of this, there is no need to keep up-to-date with campaign trends. This makes it easier for businesses to create general advertisements to use throughout the year.

Inbound marketing is slightly more advanced and requires businesses to constantly keep up-to-date with the latest trends. As online marketing is constantly evolving, creating content that is current is crucial and will help to increase customer engagement.

Expense

Typically, radio advertising and newspaper campaigns tend to be more expensive than digital marketing strategies. Not only this, but if you publish an advert and then wish to change it afterwards, you can’t just edit and upload it again, you would need to pay again to make a new one.